grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Notes from another fabulous Book Club

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Another fabulous book club!Yesterday I attended a book club in Lavaca, Arkansas. Lavaca, near Van Buren (which is near Fort Smith) reminded me of Savage Crossing. Boy, everything about this book club was a home run.

And I’m gonna tell you why.

Beginning with the SETTING.

Lynn, the host of this book club, lives on a ranch / farm. So right off, I felt at home. She and her husband have cattle, and they are row crop farmers. Her husband was cutting soybeans while we had book club because (to quote my Daddy) somebody has to work.Continue Reading

WANTED: My very own Geek.

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Yesterday, if I’d stumbled upon a genie bottle with a real live genie inside, I’d have rubbed it, as one does, and when the genie floated out in a stream of purple vapor, I would have wished for only one thing.

My very own Geek.

Wanted: my very own geek!

Oh, what I would have given for the Geek Squad to pull up to my curb and spend a few hours with me and my slowing dying MacBook. I had almost reached the point of hurling it into the back yard, but I couldn’t because it contains so much of my life.

And how pitiful does that sound?Continue Reading

Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cake

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Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I made mini pineapple upside down cake for bookclub Tuesday night. Our book of the month was The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin, which I’m sorry to say I haven’t read yet. Even so, since the book was set in the 1950s and 60s, I wanted to make a retro-chic dessert popular during that time.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake has an interesting history that originated back when most everything was cooked in a cast iron skillet. Flip cakes, as they were known, involved some sort of fruit on the bottom—usually apples, cherries or plums—layered with sugar and a thin batter. The cake could be baked on an open fire, stovetop, or oven. When the batter was done, flipping the cake onto a plate made for an instant fruit and glazed sugar display. (If you think about it, this sounds almost like a layered cobbler.)Continue Reading

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